Referred to as the iVictrola, this brass and walnut construct bookmarks the 20th century audio technology span. Mount your 21st century iPhone/iPod in the slot and hit play; the 19th century Victrola brass horn picks up the audio output and amplifies it just as the original did, acoustically. While the only production run of this device I know of was put on sale on December 8th, 2009, and was sold out by December 9th, 2009 (I am guessing a Production Run of about a dozen or so, but I have no real way of being sure if that is correct), it is physically simple and can be recreated by anyone from first principles.
Terrestrial Human
Chattacon 35 takes place in the historic Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel in TN from the 22nd to the 24th. Guests at this ReaderCon include Sherrilyn Kenyon, Timothy Zahn, Jody Lynn Nye and Bill Fawcett.
COSine 2010 is a ReaderCon with GoH L.E.Modesitt Jr., happening from the 22nd to the 24th in Colorado Springs. Another fan-run gathering is ConFusion 2010; it runs from the 22nd to the 25th, and is the annual Science Fiction convention hosted by the Stilyagi Air Force of Ann Arbor.
The main MediaCon this weekend is the Salute to Star Trek in San Francisco from the 22nd to the 24th. Primary GoH’s are William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, but there will be a ton of others there as well.
Further ConFusion takes place in San Jose, CA, from the 21st to the 25th. Now in its 12th year, FurCon is one of the largest anthropomorphic (aka “furry”) conventions in North America.
On the 23rd through the 26th (they are running from Saturday through Tuesday because Tuesday is a national holiday), ArcanaCon XXVIII takes place in Melbourne, Australia. This is primarily a GamerCon, with the emphasis at the RPG end of the spectrum.
For Anime conventions, the SoDak Anime Convention happens from the 23rd to the 25th in Rapid City, South Dakota. Guests include Voice Actors Vic Mignogna and Wendy Powell, and something no anime con should be without: their own in-house roller derby team, the Rushmore Rollerz, who run under a theme song by Florence and the Machine, A Kiss With The Fist.
This week brings us one of the monster festivals of the year, the Sundance Film Festival from the 21st to the 31st. As always with Sundance, there are a ton of great films and workshops to attend, but there are two that look particularly interesting. The first would be Splice, a story of genetic engineering and its consequences, while the 2nd is Pumzi, a story of restoring the Earth to support life after WWIII. In the Comedy category we have Tucker & Dale vs Evil, which shows you what is really happening in all those Texas Chainsaw derived movies, and for the documentary side, Life 2.0 leads the pack with a representation of one of my favorite segments of virtual reality.
Other films worth noting include Howl, an experiment in film making showing the the birth of a counterculture, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers for the musically oriented, and the entire Drunk History series, of which my favorite is Drunk History: Tesla & Edison. There are about 20 more films I feel the need to mention, but if I don’t stop now, I may never do so.
Another festival running from the 22nd to the 24th is the Trail Dance Film Festival in Duncan, OK. Ready Teddy looks like a fun one there, with the story of how the Beatles kidnapped Elvis (yes, that comes under the heading of Alternate History).
This time around, Legion appears to be the action/adventure film of choice for the weekend. The Archangel Michael teams up with human misfits in an out-of-the-way diner to battle God’s Legions for the survival of mankind. The attack by the demonic grandmother alone is worth the price of admission.
On the MUCH lighter side, Dwayne Johnson stars in Tooth Fairy, along with Ashley Judd, Billy Crystal, and Julie Andrews. I am going to have to hit this one first, just because it looks like so much fun.
Of the new movies this week, Gamer is the one I find most interesting; a game in which real people are the game pieces with technology that makes the Running Man game show look friendly. I’m going to take a pass on Pandorum, since it is horror rather than Sci-Fi. Although I am partial to silly horror, like this weeks release of Bikini Frankenstein.
The live action TV series release for this week is Defying Gravity: The Complete First Season. Unless someone else picks it up it is also the complete series, since the network canceled it just as it was getting interesting.
Update: After I posted this, they rescheduled the release of Ponyo to March 2010, the third time the DVD release date was pushed back.
Topping the Anime and the Animation list for Tuesday’s DVD releases will be Ponyo, yet another world-class creation from Hayao Miyazaki and distributed by Disney in this hemisphere. This is from the same group who will be bringing you Alice in Wonderland later this year, another class act. Not, of course, to be confused with the Alice the Sci-Fi Channel just ran, which was also well done.
For Anime TV shows to add to the collection I can recommend Yokuwakaru Gendai Maho, a good new Magical Girl animation. However it turns out, it is off to a great start! Another one worth consideration is Rin: Daughter of Mnemosyne, a six part OVA about an immortal private detective under attack by supernatural enemies. And season one of Linebarrels of Iron is also out Tuesday, a somewhat confused Mecha/Harem/High School action/comedy.
Today, it is all about Robot Revenge. Nice FX work on the first video, Panic Attack. So nice that it convinced a production company to finance his feature length version of the movie for theatrical release, to the tune of $30 million dollars. If it meets up with the promise of the short version, Fede Alvarez may just be the next successor to Neill Blomkamp (District 9), turning a home made short video into a career in the film industry.
The second video is the new entry into the world of Robot Mashups: Skynet Symphonic. All the sampled sounds are actually from ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’, and it is just plain fun.